In the past few years I’ve been exploring a three-part framework for analyzing narratives. This framework asks three questions about a story: How is it composed? What does it represent? And what does it mean? To designate these three perspectives I have borrowed terms from James Phelan: the Synthetic Aspect, the Mimetic Aspect, and the … Continue reading Synthetic, Mimetic, and Thematic in “White Noise”
Tag: writing
Four Features Beginnings
A while ago I wrote a post (“It’s Time to Wake Up!”) about what I called Alarm Clock Beginnings, when a novel starts first thing in the morning. In this post I look at another way to begin a novel, when a novel begins by specifying, in the first sentence or so, Time, Place, one … Continue reading Four Features Beginnings
One Last Kick at the Can: Three More Rings
There’s lots more to say about ring composition; I may return to the topic if I come across a ring that deserves comment, but this post will be the last in this series of posts. I. A story may be constructed so that the first link in the temporal sequence matches the last link. Thus … Continue reading One Last Kick at the Can: Three More Rings
More on Rings: Closure, Frames, and Dreams
In this post I continue my discussion of whole-plot ring composition with discussions of closure, frames, and dream narratives. I. Closure: The repetition at the end of a novel (or a story or a poem) of material from the beginning can create a feeling of closure, as we can see in Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”: ’Twas … Continue reading More on Rings: Closure, Frames, and Dreams
Ring Composition and The Worm Ouroboros
In this post I want to talk about an interesting example of ring composition in E. R. Eddison’s fantasy novel The Worm Ouroboros. Ring composition is a figure of speech, though it isn’t listed in any of the handbooks of figures of speech that I’ve looked at, nor is it discussed in any of the … Continue reading Ring Composition and The Worm Ouroboros
It’s Time to Wake Up!
In my previous post I discussed a figure of speech which, so far as I know, had never up till then been described or named. In this figure the last word of a clause (or nearly the last word) is repeated and then expanded upon to provide some explanation or expansion or specification. I have … Continue reading It’s Time to Wake Up!
The Old Wives’ Tale
I recently reread The Old Wives’ Tale, by Arnold Bennett (first published in 1908) and I thought the first part of the first chapter was worth some analysis and comment. Bennett was born in 1867 and died in 1931. He wrote 34 novels and 96 short stories; I’ve read three of his novels: The Old … Continue reading The Old Wives’ Tale
Novels: The Formless Form?
I just happened to read a book of literary criticism that I’ve owned for many years but never got around to reading: The World and the Book: A Study of Modern Fiction, by Gabriel Josipovici (Macmillan 1971). Josipovici is a prolific writer, a novelist and a critic and a playwright. This is the only book … Continue reading Novels: The Formless Form?
The Art of Reading Slowly 